Marigold

Marigold may have been gardener's best friend as it is a good companion plant to send away annoying pests. Marigold had been on my planting list last semester. Unluckily, it hadn't been effective to keep pests, in this case aphids, away, but the other way around 
it had been heavily infested with aphids! 

It especially attacked my African Crackerjacks. 

  Until one point, I decided to chop them off and discarded them.

                       Does anyone know why?

Carrot Cake

Growing up with 'Donald Duck' comics, I was always intriqued by the carrot cake he likes to bake for his 3 nephews. Does it sound familiar? Well, in my case I have finally made it myself and tried it just recently, and have made that at least 3 times already.

This recipe is actually taken from the recipe book I copied a long time ago from an American friend. Thus, I believe this must be similar to uncle Donald's original recipe!

The recipe calls for :

Dried ingredients:

3 cups of all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

11/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tsp nutmeg powder

1/2 tsp clove powder

1/2 tsp salt

wet ingredients:

1 c vegetable oil

1 1/2 c sugar

4 eggs

2 c shredded carrot

1 c raisins

1 c nuts (optional)

Method:

1. Mix the dried and wet ingredients. Stir well, pour the mix into a greased and powdered cake tin with a hole in the middle. 

2. Oven at 150°C for 45 mins until it's no longer mushy, but don't bake more than 45 mins because it can quickly dried up and lose its moistness.

Roast Pork Risotto (Chinese Style)

Are you a fan of risotto? Here's the Chinese-style roast pork risotto I made recently. Actually this was my first try 

but everyone in the family liked it!

Ingredients:

3 cups of rice

500 grams of roast pork (chopped)

3 medium size dried shitake mushroom (soaked until soft, slice thinly)

200 grams Chinese Mustard leaves (chopped)

5 cloves garlic (minced)

5 cm of ginger (sliced thinly)

2 Tbsp oyster sauce

2 Tbsp sesame oil

6-7 Tbsp salty soya sauce (Indonesian salty soya sauce "Angsa" brand, you may use any you can find)

1-2 Tbsp sweet soya sauce (Indonesian Soya Sauce "Bango" brand)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 Tbsp salt

And water 

Method:

1. Using a little vegetable oil, stir-fry the chopped roast pork for a while until it turns golden brown and some of the lard melting, thus, brings out fragrance, Add 2-3 Tbsp salty soya sauce, stir well. Set aside.

2. Now with a little vegetable oil, stirfy the Chinese Mustard Leaves and mushroom with minced garlic and sliced ginger. Then, add 2 Tbsp of salty soya sauce. Stir until it all blends. Set aside.

3). Now, with some vegetable oil, stir fry the uncooked rice (that has been washed prior to cooking), add 2 Tbsp oyster sauce, 2 Tbsp salty soya sauce, and 1-2 Tbsp sweet soya sauce. Stir well and move the rice into the rice cooker.

4). Add the roast pork and veggies, stir well, add water brimming over the rice about 2,5 cm higher than the rice  (or I usually dip the first knuckle of my index finger in order to measure the water). Cook the risotto with the rice cooker until, all the liquid dried up.

5). Moved the risotto to the steamer, steamed for 30 minutes or until the rice is well-cooked and tender. Serve with coriander fried chicken, some cilantro and fried onion.

Borlotti & Tongue of Fire Beans

I haven't been succeeded with Borlotti or Tongue of Fire Beans. I germinated Borlotti beans around January and repotted it in February. We were still having drought and high temperature as the effect of the volcano eruption nearby (about 88 km away). So, I tried to water my plants a couple of times a day. This I suspected as one of the causes beside the extreme temperature that could reach 37-38 degree Celcius. It had grown healthily at first and started to set fruit but soon I noticed that the base stem were turning brown and dried, which is the symptoms of Fusarium wilt. This condition disrupted the flow of water and nutrition from the roots to the plant, and eventually caused death. I had to pull it out and grieved for the bean pods that turning yellow ― of those I had never had the chance to harvest...

In March I planted Tongue of Fire Beans and the same problem happened. Well, I bought the seeds from a US-bassed seed seller, I suspected they are not suitable for planting in tropical weather with its high temperature and humidity.

How about you? Do you have any experience planting them in tropical weather? How's it going?

Finishing Crochet Projects

Hi, how are you doing today? What are you up to? Are you finishing some projects lately? As for me, I'm doing the finishing touch to my bag projects which I initially started in 2011, but then left them halfway as I immersed into my teaching and translating routine, and only continued to finish them this year. I just need to add cotton cloth for the inner layer. I'll show you the pictures once I finished them.